15 Changes I’ve Seen in 15 Years

This month marks the 15th anniversary of Buchanan Public Relations. Much has happened since I set up shop in a spare bedroom of my home a decade-and-a-half ago. Now, ten of us – and two dogs – sit in “real” office space. The anniversary got me to thinking. Here are 15 big changes I’ve witnessed in the last 15 years.

I’ve broken them into three categories: the client, the agency, and the industry.

The Client

1. Fewer clients who have “public relations” in their title. In the 25 years I’ve been in the public relations business, I’ve been struck by the overall decline in how many organizations have a fulltime public relations professional on staff. You’ll still find communications professionals at large companies, of course, but it’s more common at mid-sized organizations to find public relations being managed by a marketing or sales professional or a principal of the company.

2. Less educated about public relations. Largely because of trend # 1, we are interacting more with clients who do not necessarily understand public relations. That makes us more valued, but it also demands that we always be sensitive to the need to educate and explain.

3. Fewer wacky business arrangements. One trend I was happy to see disappear was the numerous crazy financial “deals” that tech companies asked us to enter into during the dot.com days. Handle our launch PR in exchange for equity in the company! No, thanks. We passed on every single one of them, and I have no regrets.

4. A return to “real” businesses. I came across some notes I wrote at the height of the dot.com craze. One of my scribbles read: When is a business really a business? I remember being stunned at the number of “companies” that (in my opinion) had no “real” product and were certainly not earning any “real” profits. Many entrepreneurs seemed to think a great idea = a company. Happily, the market has re-instilled that business fundamental.  

The Agency

5. The digitization of everything. Anyone who remembers manual media directories is as grateful as I am for this trend. Companies that used to make money selling a clipping service scramble to reinvent themselves in a digital age. This has mostly been a good trend for PR folks.

6. The blurring between advertising and public relations. I’ve seen the pendulum swing back and forth between independent PR firms and full-service, everything-under-one-roof agencies. For a long time, I thought those of us who were independent, PR-only shops had a distinct advantage. That has now shifted. Peril to the PR firm that doesn’t understand SEO and Pay-per-Click.

7. The quest for the Holy Grail of (affordable) measurement. For as long as I’ve been in PR, this has been an issue. And it’s only gotten slipperier with the advent of social media. We’re still struggling to find reliable tools that clients are willing to pay for.

8. The long lead times required to place stories. One of the most dramatic byproducts of trend # 11 (the collapse of traditional media) is that the amount of time required to research, pitch, and place a story has lengthened dramatically. We spend a lot of time managing client expectations now. Yes, we can probably get the high-profile pub interested, but it may take a few months, especially if it’s not breaking news.

9. The formalization of the PR internship. In the last five years, more of our PR interns have been college graduates than have been students. This is primarily due to a stagnant job market. But it’s been a tremendous boon for agencies, which can take advantage of the sharpest graduates, and for grads, who know that every additional bit of training will have them better prepared for their first full-time assignment. We wish we could hire every terrific grad who comes our way. We can’t. But we can offer them a “graduate level” internship that has them eminently hire-able at the end.

10. Location, location, location. Not so important, important, important. Clients care less about where you are physically located as long as you can get the job done.

The Industry

11. The collapse of traditional media. Every time we give a presentation on social media, we start with a slide that talks about how many “traditional” newsroom jobs have been eliminated. We update the slide with new numbers for every presentation. Enough said.

12. The rise of social media. Whether it caused # 11 or is a result of # 11 (or, a combination of both), I’m thankful for it. It gives brands a whole new way to engage with customers and fans, without being dependent on traditional media as the intermediary. (A shout out to David Meerman Scott for The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which got me on this bandwagon quickly.)

13. PR as a major. When I started my career, there was no such thing as a Public Relations major. The most impressive credentials you could bring to the field were either a Journalism degree (yay, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill!) or a career in journalism. Today, we are blown away by how well many colleges are teaching the practice of Public Relations to students.

14. An intimidating number of new tools. This is a great time to be in the PR industry. But it’s never been more fast-paced than it is now. PR professionals must stay on top of new tools and trends, or become obsolete fast.

15. The importance of the fundamentals. One of my few pet peeves about social media is that it has obscured the importance of good public relations fundamentals. Yes, it’s important to know how to engage on Twitter and run a good Facebook campaign. But take the shiny tools away, and we’re still left with a client challenge. How do we counsel our client to respond to picketers outside the store? What key messages need to be communicated – and to whom? What is the very first thing we should do? Those questions never go away. But they do get obscured by the bling of social media.

How about you? What trends have you witnessed in the last 15 years? Which have been best for our industry?